Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [319]
But amidst all this gloom there is a golden ring of light – the heroic, titanic struggle between Arsenal and Sheffield Wednesday in the third round of the FA Cup.
Tonight they face each other for the fourth time to try and break the deadlock. We have the radio on in the kitchen but I can hardly bear to listen. Onenil to Wednesday – heart surges. Arsenal miss a penalty – heart practically bursts. Then a minute later Arsenal equalise – numbness. Then Arsenal draw ahead – feeling of resignation, pulse rate almost down to normal. Then Wednesday equalise two minutes from the end! Extra time again. Over seven hours of football and still tied. Then an extra goal apiece in extra time. Another heroic evening. And they play again – in Leicester next Monday.1
Friday, January 19th
Brian screening. Terry Hughes, Michael White, George H, Jill Foster. John Goldstone issues us with clipboards and little torches to make notes. Just before time, Graham and Eric – our foreign exiles – arrive.
The showing does not go that well. Long periods of audience silence. But afterwards we all meet (mafia-like) in a private room above the Trattoria Terrazza. General feelings are that the movie works 75%. Disagreement on cuts, however. TJ wants to lose stoning. Eric feels that the Ex-Leper should go before the stoning. All are agreed to cut Haggling and most of the raid. I suggest cutting Mandy’s last speech.TJ agrees. Eric is worried about Otto – we all feel that it half works. There are many instances of jokes half working, which disappoints me.
It’s a good, workmanlike session, though people about to make earth-shattering points about the movie tend to be interrupted by waiters asking whether they’d like some aubergines.
My first appearance on Saturday Night Live had gone well enough for me to be courted again. I was scheduled to guest host at the end of January and quite an adventure ensued.
Saturday, January 20th
Managed to cope with a packed couple of days on Thursday and Friday, in order to make the 11.15 Concorde to NY this morning for my second guest hosting of Saturday Night Live.
About 40 minutes outside London, with the first cocktails flowing and freeing the traveller’s brain from the numbing buzz of a hundred other conversations, the pilot’s voice comes over the PA and, in bold, almost reassuring tones, advises us that there is ‘bad news’. Momentarily visions of the worst sort flash through my mind, but the facts are quite mundane. There is a malfunction with the cooling system in one of the engines and ‘transonic’ flight will not be possible. We have to return to London.
So I find myself back in the lounge.
As the delay in repairing our aircraft grows longer (the airline even has a term for it – ‘creeping delay’), I’m stuck for two more hours with a roomful of over-achievers. And no brunch.
Sunday, January 21st, The Hospitality Inn, Enfield, Connecticut
8.00 A.M. Outside my room drizzle falls out of grey skies onto snow. Thin, spiky bare birch woods away to my right. Below me a man is clearing his car window of three inches of snow – the result of the storm that eventually ensured our progress across the Atlantic was nearer 22 hours than the three and a half Concorde proudly boasts. I kept a note of the lost day – January 20th – which surely will go down in the annals of supersonic flight.
12.15 – We wait in the departure lounge for five and a half hours
5.45 P.M. whilst a new part is found for the aircraft. By then it’s too late for the old crew to work, so a new crew has to be found.
5.50 P.M. BA 171 starts take-off six and a half hours behind schedule. Take-off aborted as anti-skid warning light fails to function. We taxi back to ramp.
5.50 – Two hours’ wait, in the aircraft (more champagne) for new part
8.00 P.M. to be installed and fuel tank topped up – ‘Only three tons,’ says the captain cheerfully, though this may be a reference to the Dom Perignon.